Why I think we're living in a computerized universe

[Star Treks]

Just a little theory. Probably been thought of many times before, but nonetheless it's the conclusion I've reached.

Premise 1: The technology to create an artificial universe (a la The Matrix, The 13th Floor, or a really advanced Holodeck) may not have been developed by humanity yet, but is capable of someday being created by a sufficiently advanced species, including perhaps future humans.

Premise 2: If this technology existed it would probably be used extensively - for research, maybe for entertainment, for any number of reasons. If people can do something, some of them usually do it; and if we can create fake universes, we probably will.

Assuming that there is one "ultimate" reality, the initial reality that is not created by a computer, then there probably would at some point exist many hundreds, thousands, even billions of sub-realities, or artificial realities, within the larger real universe - thousands of simulated universes. Therefore, the chances that I (or we) are living in the ultimate reality are very small based on pure chance. Given the potential existence of many non-real universes, there is a greater chance that we are living in one of those rather than the non-artificially-created universe.

This is a broad outline of my belief, but basically it's why I would not be at all surprised to find that I was living in a Matrix-like universe. How about you?

 

[Brent]

What a sad reality that would be though. I can only act on what I know, and the reality that I am currently in, I am bound by its rules. I've tried looking up and really truly thinking I can fly and gravity doesn't exist, but it didn't work

 

[Star Treks]

What a sad reality that would be though. I can only act on what I know, and the reality that I am currently in, I am bound by its rules. I've tried looking up and really truly thinking I can fly and gravity doesn't exist, but it didn't work

We just need to find the proper hidden panel and reprogram this sucker. I can think of a few changes to this reality I'd like to make...

 

[Robert Maxwell]

I am of the mind that even if we are living in a "computerized simulation," a sufficiently good simulation would be indistinguishable from reality, and for all intents and purposes is a reasonable substitute for reality.

I think we intuitively dislike the idea of living in a simulation because it dispels our illusion that we are in control of our lives. But if you give it any thought, the control you have over your life is pretty minimal. You could be hit by a bus, or killed in a carjacking, or struck in the head by a stray meteor, or come down with a particularly nasty cancer, and none of those things are particularly preventable or have much you can do anything about.

Having a simulation contain us, however, implies an intelligence is observing and possibly even controlling us, and we dislike it for that reason, even though there is no reason to believe we have any more control over our lives in a "real" reality.

I would also point out that a universe created/run by one or more gods is effectively no different than a simulated universe created and run by some other intelligence.

 

[CuttingEdge100]

Well, I personally do not believe this theory. I personally believe this is sort of a high-tech version of existentialism.

If it was true however, I would not be happy because we would all be deprived of our ability to experience reality (actual reality, not virtual)


CuttingEdge100

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Well, I personally do not believe this theory. I personally believe this is sort of a high-tech version of existentialism.

If it was true however, I would not be happy because we would all be deprived of our ability to experience reality (actual reality, not virtual)


CuttingEdge100

But "reality" is a very subjective concept in the first place. None of us really experience "reality" as it truly is. We experience it as filtered through our senses. And if you don't believe your senses are heavily filtered, I suggest you look into the concept of the user illusion, or do a little exercise to find how your brain conceals the existence of your blind spots. Your experience is very heavily filtered at a level below your consciousness. "Reality" is highly subjective from person to person.

 

[Myasishchev]

What a sad reality that would be though. I can only act on what I know, and the reality that I am currently in, I am bound by its rules. I've tried looking up and really truly thinking I can fly and gravity doesn't exist, but it didn't work

We just need to find the proper hidden panel and reprogram this sucker. I can think of a few changes to this reality I'd like to make...

Arch! Arch, damnit!

But, yeah, the OP's suggestion that the universe is actually a simulation has been floated before, and has some serious logic behind it. If a posthuman society runs simulations of people, the vaster number of people who ever lived will have lived in a simulation, and not in the basement of reality. So, if this is the case, odds are our lives are simulated.

It rests on the assumption, however, that a posthuman society would run such similatuons ad infinitum, which they may or may not do. As quantum physicist David Deutsch said in critique of Frank Tipler's Omega Point utopianism, just because we might do such a thing does not mean that the life forms to come long after us might also. There's no reason to think they would especially care. Paraphrasing an analogy of his, an architect of the 13th century, able to accurately foresee the abilities of humans of the 21st, might posit the construction of mile-high cathedrals. Surely we could do such a thing--but we don't, because the things the 13th century values are not at all what the 21st century does, and the values of a posthuman intelligence capable of such simulation would likely be far more removed than we are from a 13th century architect.

That said, I think there's a compelling moral argument that a sufficiently advanced posthuman society would resurrect us. If the computing power required to simulate a human was trivial, it might be seen as rather distasteful to deliberately fail to sustain our existences. As physical objects, also, we might wind up simulated merely as a side effect of modeling a history of reality, on which a posthuman society utilizing (as in Tipler's conception) the entire universe as a computing mechanism might well depend.

On the other hand, our lives and intelligences may seem so brutish and pitiful that posthuman beings might find it morally wrong to recreate us at all, especially with all the pain and despair a human existence usually consists of.

If it was true however, I would not be happy because we would all be deprived of our ability to experience reality (actual reality, not virtual)

That's not true. We either already existed once, and are being simulated, or we never existed, and have been brought into being, based on a perceived moral duty to create life, or for fun, or for scientific curiosity. In either case, no experience has been taken away. It's not like the Matrix, where the machine intelligences keep people in jars for thermodynamically implausible reasons.

 

[Arrqh]

What a sad reality that would be though.

Why would it be sad? Rather, it would have absolutely zero bearing on how we related to ourselves and the world around us.

I generally prefer the term nested universe (as in a universe that is a function of one that exists around it) because I think implying that it's "just" in a computer dismisses it as "not real". But that isn't the case. If you can simulate a universe on the level of every single subatomic particle, then living inside it is no different in any measurable way from living in a non-simulated universe.

The idea that if such a thing is possible then we are almost certainly living in one is one that I've read about before and one that I generally agree with. It leads me to two thoughts... first, I wonder if the computational power of a computer build in a nested universe is limited or not and if it is does this mean that each level of simulations is therefore simpler then the one it was created in? And second, it can't be turtles all the way down so there would have to be a "real" universe at the top... and it's properties are most likely completely and utterly alien to us.

 

[JustAFriend]

Unfortunately, you've forgotten the most basic premise of science:

"The simplest explanation is usually the right one."

And even if we do live in a 'simulation' then it doesn't really matter; you're stuck with what you have and have to live by the rules of this Universe.

 

[Arrqh]

Unfortunately, you've forgotten the most basic premise of science:

"The simplest explanation is usually the right one."

And even if we do live in a 'simulation' then it doesn't really matter; you're stuck with what you have and have to live by the rules of this Universe.

Can you offer, then, a simpler explanation for the cause of the big bang and the existence of the universe... preferably one that is a testable hypothesis? If you can, I'm sure the physics community would love to hear it!

In any case, this isn't a question of science really. It's metaphysics. We cannot measure what is or is not outside the universe... in fact, as a concept that has no real physical meaning. And just because it has no practical affect on how we live our lives doesn't mean it isn't something worth thinking and talking about.

 

[Jadzia]

There is no explanation that that does not itself need to be explained.

 

[Star Treks]

Interesting responses. It's nice to know I'm not the only weirdo who thinks about this kind of thing from time to time.

As to what it actually means, I generally agree that "just" because we might live in a computer simulation, doesn't mean it's not "real" or even something very close to its own sort of ultimate "reality" - but it also does raise interesting questions about, for example, free will and the usefulness or uselessness of suffering. It is worth being talked about even if no answer can really be discovered.

But, I don't see why we have to assume that it is impossible to "break out" of an artificially generated universe. Here's one idea: Future intelligences do see today's humans as brutish and full of despair, but somehow also recognize the value of individual, unique consciousnesses. Therefore they create simulated universes which (perhaps on a faster time scale either in their reality or ours or both) are designed to evolve those consciousnesses through experience. Perhaps you have to even create a unique universe for each consciousness (which would mean that, for me, I really am the only person in this universe) or perhaps there's a way to evolve many consciousnesses using the same universe (in which case some or all humans are actual non-computerized consciousnesses, some or all of which are being evolved). Once you reach the right state of consciousness they let you out of your universe and into the real one. Anybody see "Defending Your Life"?

Or, maybe we are actually those future entities who have had our memories erased and are living past lives to learn what the world or life was like hundreds or millions of years ago, and once we die we reassert our place in future society, whatever that might look like.

In other words, there might actually be ways in which we can escape this reality, perhaps even by thinking about it, if it is in fact artificially generated.

 

[Arrqh]

But, I don't see why we have to assume that it is impossible to "break out" of an artificially generated universe.

Because if our universe is simulated by a parent universe then the physical structure we observe is not physical structure in our parent.

Think of any sort of computer simulation we can do now. In many ways, those are universes too, though really simple ones compared to ours. But there's no way for data inside that simulation to leave it. The very idea doesn't make sense... all that physically exists from our perspective is just a bunch of bits. You can't reach into your hard drive and physically remove a file and expect to end up with a piece of paper. What you can do is print the file... but the data didn't find a way to escape. Instead, the system running the simulation took a copy of some of the data and expressed it in a meaningful way.

It would be like expecting a character from a video game to jump out of your monitor or an imaginary character in your brain to spring out from your forehead. It doesn't make sense for those nested realities to be able to express themselves physically of their own volition. Not without an external system designed to express them.

 

[Samurai8472]

Maybe Deja Vu is just our minds remembering previous resets

 

[-Brett-]

So there's an alien intelligence that can make a computerized universe any way it wants, and it makes one like this? How boring must their universe be?

If I was going to make a universe, I'd give everyone the ability to fly. And shoot laser beams out of their eyeballs.

 

[Icemizer]

You are actually living the "They Live" Universe, not the Matrix one. Sorry.

 

[Myasishchev]

So there's an alien intelligence that can make a computerized universe any way it wants, and it makes one like this? How boring must their universe be?

If I was going to make a universe, I'd give everyone the ability to fly. And shoot laser beams out of their eyeballs.

Flight and eye lasers wouldn't have much historical or research value, being physically unlikely/impossible.

Here's one idea: Future intelligences do see today's humans as brutish and full of despair, but somehow also recognize the value of individual, unique consciousnesses. Therefore they create simulated universes which (perhaps on a faster time scale either in their reality or ours or both) are designed to evolve those consciousnesses through experience. Perhaps you have to even create a unique universe for each consciousness (which would mean that, for me, I really am the only person in this universe) or perhaps there's a way to evolve many consciousnesses using the same universe (in which case some or all humans are actual non-computerized consciousnesses, some or all of which are being evolved). Once you reach the right state of consciousness they let you out of your universe and into the real one. Anybody see "Defending Your Life"?

A fantastic film, and an interesting take on it.

One thing about a simulated reality is that the simulators would have demonstrated proof that such a thing is possible, and would be even more wary of the possibility that their own reality is false, and that they are just more programs running on a higher level of implementation than us, but a lower level than the ultimate intelligences. They would have to face the possibility that they too are being observed, and perhaps judged based on moral grounds.

 

[Jadzia]

So Star Treks, what philosophy of life should we adopt with this new found conclusion?

And is there any part of the one true reality which necessarily transcends a simulation? Consciousness? Numbers? Logic?

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Almost certainly we are -- at least according to Professor Nick Bostrom of Oxford University:

http://www.simulation-argument.com/

If I ever meet the Hypervisor, I'm going to give it a good talking to...

 

[bdb]

What a sad reality that would be though. I can only act on what I know, and the reality that I am currently in, I am bound by its rules. I've tried looking up and really truly thinking I can fly and gravity doesn't exist, but it didn't work

Flying is easy. All you have to do is throw yourself at the ground, and miss.